"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." - John 15:18

"“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 5:10 "Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority
to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been
beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those
who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its
mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned
with Christ for a thousand years. " - Revelation 20:4

In the latest issue of its English-language magazine Dabiq,
the Islamic State calls on Christians to abandon Christianity, arguing
that Jesus himself was “a slave of Allah” who will “wage jihad” upon
returning to earth.

The fifteenth issue of the magazine, titled “Break the Cross,”
is dedicated to convincing Christians that Jesus was a prophet of
Allah, was never crucified, and that most of the New Testament is a
perversion of Jesus’s story orchestrated by St. Paul, a “criminal”
“treacherous Jew” who gave up massacring Christians in order to subvert
the religion from the inside. Its articles strive to depict Christianity
as a pagan religion based on a false Jesus, arguing that the only true
Jesus is the prophet of Islam.The feigned compassion towards Christians in most of the volume
stands in stark contrast to the actions of the Islamic State’s
terrorists towards Christian communities, which includes rape, torture, crucifixion, and slavery. In the issue’s Foreward, the editors make clear the intent of the
magazine: the issue will help “Crusaders” “read into why Muslims hate
and fight them, why pagan Christians should break their crosses, why
liberalist secularists should return to the fitrah (natural human
disposition), and why skeptical atheists should recognize their Creator
and submit to Him.”“In essence, we explain why they must abandon their infidelity and
accept Islam, the religion of sincerity and submission to the Lord of
the heavens and the earth,” the editors write.Among their reasons are that Jesus himself is a “slave of Allah,”
according to Ja’far, a cousin of Muhammad. “We say about him like our
prophet taught us – that he is the slave of Allah, His messenger, His
[chosen] spirit, and His word which He cast into the pure virgin Mary,”
Ja’far is quoted as saying.The cover story, “Break the Cross,” argues that Jesus will do
precisely that upon his return: “break the cross, kill the swine, and
put aside the jizyah [infidels’ tax, assuming all the infidels will have
been killed].” “The true religion of Jesus Christ is a pure
monotheistic submission – called Islam… when he returns in the final
days, the Messiah will adhere to the Law of Muhammad and wage jihad for
the cause of Allah,” the article argues, citing Islamic doctrine.It makes the claim that, because there are four gospels, none of
which are written by Jesus himself, no part of the New Testament is
trustworthy, most of all the crucifixion.” “Jesus was not crucified,”
the article argues, quoting Muhammad, who lived 600 years later. The
claim that Jesus did not die on the cross appears in the Quran.As for St. Paul, he is referred to in turn as a “criminal” and
“treacherous Jew” who “intentionally sought to deviate the monotheistic
Nazarenes in order to tarnish Jesus’ name – even if it meant Paul’s own
persecution.” The Holy Trinity being an essential concept of St. Paul’s
writings is a form of polytheism, according to Islamic State jihadists,
one intended to deceive Christians.The issue spends much of its time attempting to convert “Unitarians” –
Christians who do not believe in the Holy Trinity – while arguing that
these Christians were mostly purged by the Roman Church. It claim the
“debate between Trinitarians and Unitarians reached the heights of
popularity during the fourth century of the Christian calendar.” The
issue ignores the continued existence of Unitarian churches, perhaps
because the phrase in modern America has taken to mean any rejection of
Trinitarianism, and the largest church identifying with the term in the
United States, the Unitarian Universalist church, explicitly rejects imposing exclusively Christian doctrine on its members.The fifteenth Dabiq stands in stark contrast to its predecessor published in April,
which featured a cover story condemning the Muslim Brotherhood and
focused on condemning “apostate” Muslims, not those outside of Islam.